


It Comes at Night

by most_curiously_blue_eyes



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Monster of the Week, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:40:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27305002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/most_curiously_blue_eyes/pseuds/most_curiously_blue_eyes
Summary: Daryl Dixon is just a kiddie teacher at the Sunny Valley Daycare Center. His biggest concerns are crayon stains on walls, energetic three-year-olds, and the Creep who's been coming to stare at his kids every now and then.And then everything changes. Turns out, there are things that go bump at night, and some of them are out to get Daryl. Good thing he's not alone.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42
Collections: Daryl is gay/asexual so deal with it





	It Comes at Night

**Author's Note:**

> This story is going to have a monster-of-the-week episodic formula. It's a sort-of Supernatural fusion, only no angels, demons and other drama from that show. There's just going to be a monster-hunting road trip with Rick and Daryl!  
> The title is taken from a likewise-named Pretty Maids song.  
> Updates will be bi-weekly if everything goes as planned. I have eight chapters planned out, but I don't know how long it might end up. Hopefully it won't go on for 15 seasons ;)
> 
> Warning: obviously there is going to be some violence, references to Daryl's past child abuse, and other things. I will be warning for anything particularly disturbing on a chapter-by-chapter basis.
> 
> Have a spooky Halloween, despite everything <3

If somebody told ten-year old Daryl Dixon that one day he’d end up teaching a bunch of kindergarteners nursery rhymes about teddy bears, he’d have thought that person was on drugs. From his limited experience, there were only two career choices for a Dixon: unemployed, like his Dad, or dead. At ten years old, Daryl didn’t know which way he was heading, but he had no doubt at all that it was an _either-or_ situation.

And yet there he is, thirty years old, very much alive, and a damn kiddie teacher in the Sunflower Valley Daycare Center in Delilah. He’s been doing this job for the last five years, too, and he’s unexpectedly good at it.

It all started out as a favor to Carol Peletier. She needed an emergency substitute at work when that no-good husband of hers broke her arm in one of his rages. Carol didn’t want to call the police or even let Daryl get Ed out of the house. She just asked him to sub for her for a few days until she got better, and Daryl agreed both because he wanted to help, and because he was between jobs anyway.

As it turned out, he’s pretty damn good with little kids. After the two week period of subbing for Carol, he got offered a permanent position as a teacher’s assistant, and he took it. He didn’t even hesitate about it too much. It was a job, it paid real money, it was stable. So what if Merle thought it was gay for a man to work at a daycare? Daryl took the job, then went ahead and finished school to become a full-time teacher.

Merle still thinks it’s not manly, and he’s quite vocal about it, but Daryl doesn’t care. Merle has yet to work a single day in his life, a proud perpetrator of the Dixon tradition of unemployment. He can take his opinion and shove it up his drugged-out ass.

Being a kindergarten teacher is hard work, harder than one could expect. Pre-school kids are basically small containers for unlimited energy, restless and endlessly curious about _everything._ Daryl’s day-to-day job includes caring for his group of eight three-year-olds, helping them during mealtime, comforting them when they miss their parents. He also has to assist them to the bathroom since they’re not all fully potty-trained yet even though they’re all out of their diapers. Accidents happen. Poop-related accidents especially. It’s a good thing Daryl’s always had a strong stomach. 

In spring, summer and up to mid-Fall, the daily schedule includes outside playtime, as long as the weather allows. The Sunflower Valley Daycare Center has a vast backyard with three separate playgrounds appropriate for different age groups. Daryl’s three-year-olds share their playground with Amy Harrison’s four-year-olds, and so far, they’ve managed to go without any major conflicts during their play hours.

It might be Daryl’s favorite time of the day, even more so than the post-lunchtime nap. He’s an outdoors type of man, he likes being outside much more than being cooped up in the classroom. It might be quite big, but it’s still a room he has to share with a bunch of toddlers who love squealing, yelling, crying and singing - most of those simultaneously. He really cherishes the one or two hours a day he gets to watch the kids run around the playground, build sandcastles and climb the age-appropriate jungle gym.

Today is just like every other day. At ten-thirty, Daryl leads his three-year-olds to the playground so they can expend some energy before lunch. The boys: Patrick, Carl and Duane, go to the sandbox to build stuff. They always build stuff. They’ve been building inside too, with Duplo blocks. Daryl’s worried sometimes that they’re going to riot once they run out of blocks. So far, it’s been okay, there was that big donation last year and the center has like, thousands of Duplo blocks; the problem is, these kids are attempting to create a whole damn city or something, and they burn through their building materials real fast. 

At least with the girls, Daryl doesn’t have to worry. Mika and Summer go to occupy the picnic table to play with dolls, more each on their own than together. Enid immediately heads to the flower patch with a plastic shovel. There probably won’t be any flowers left by the end of the week with how she’s been _caring_ for them, but hell. It’s not like the garden is there for any reason other than to be fun for the kids. If Enid likes refurbishing it so that it’s more of a post-apocalyptic wasteland than a blooming flower patch, that’s cool. 

The remaining two girls - Clementine and Sophia - go to the swings. They know not to try to swing too high, but just in case, Daryl keeps a closer eye on them than the others. He’s never had a serious injury happen out here and he intends to keep it that way.

He takes a seat on the bench in the shade of the old willow tree and surveys his little kingdom. The boys argue about something in a half-human language of three-year-olds, but it’s not heated enough to warrant an intervention. Sophia helps Clementine get on the twin swing because she’s slightly taller than her, and they start singing the song from Frozen. Their singing is almost as off-key as Merle’s, but their rendition of the song is still much better than Daryl’s older brother could ever dream of. Enid plucks a pansy, tears it up into small pieces, and buries them in holes she made in the ground, apparently attempting to grow new flowers out of it. One day, she’s going to learn how gardening actually works, but today’s not that day. 

Beyond the garden, behind the fence, Daryl spots a familiar face, and he frowns.

_The Creep is there again._

Daryl’s been seeing the man for a good few months now. He doesn’t always look the same. Sometimes he’s clean-shaven and dressed in a suit. Other times, he’s got a beard with specks of gray in it, and he looks like a cop even though Daryl’s pretty sure the man is _not_ a cop at all. Today, the Creep’s dressed in a warm-looking, brown and fur-lined leather jacket, and his face is covered in a stubble that has the potential to become a full-grown beard if left unattended. 

Daryl doesn’t see him there every day, not even every week, but he’s there often enough to draw attention; although admittedly, so far it seems nobody else at the daycare has noticed him. Daryl likes to think it’s because he’s more observant than the average nursery teacher, and for good reason: when one grows up a Dixon, they have to learn to be aware of their surroundings. The truth is, however, even Daryl might not have noticed the strange man’s recurring presence… if he didn’t find him insanely hot the first time he’d seen him.

It’s unfair. Why does he always have to be attracted to the weirdest dude he can find?

The truth is, he should’ve reported the Creep long ago, possibly after the first time he saw the man out there looking in. A guy in his mid-thirties by the looks of him, no matter how pretty, should _not_ be staring at little kids in a daycare center playground every couple of weeks without a very good reason. Chances are the guy’s a pervert, and regardless of their good looks, perverts preying on children should be taken off the streets before they actually hurt anyone.

Daryl still hasn’t reported him, though. 

He doesn’t know what it is about that man. It’s certainly not because he finds the guy attractive, because Daryl might be somewhat dumb, but he’s not that sort of dumb. There’s just… something strange about that man. The way he looks at the kids in Daryl’s group isn’t like, lustful or hungry or anything like he’d expect from a pervert. It’s more wistful, if anything. Hurt maybe. Sad. Daryl wonders, maybe the guy has a kid he misses. Or had one, and doesn’t anymore. There’s a story there, and Daryl thinks - _hopes_ \- the story doesn’t involve creeping on children. 

Still, this stalkerish creepy thing has got to stop. At some point, the other teachers will notice a stranger staring at the kids, and they won’t be as tolerant about it as Daryl has been. And for good reason. Amy is overprotective and paranoid about perverts after she found child porn on her ex-boyfriend’s laptop. Carol is a single mother now, after she finally kicked Ed to the curb and hit him with a restraining order, and she treats most men as though they’re potential danger. Neither of these two is going to take kindly to a stranger possibly creeping on kids under their watch, and Daryl wouldn’t blame them for calling the cops. 

He doesn’t really want to see that guy arrested, though, and that more than anything makes him decide to finally act.

“Hey Ames, got a favor to ask,” he says, nodding at the younger teacher. 

Amy’s four-year-olds are a smaller group, three girls and three boys. They don’t really interact much with Daryl’s three-year-olds because their one year difference is actually huge at that point of development; Daryl’s kids are barely out of their diapers and only semi-coherent while Amy’s kids can already count to ten and know what it means. They mostly use that knowledge when they come outside to play hide-and-seek with Amy’s assistant teacher, Lydia. 

As soon as Daryl mentions a favor, Amy’s attention sort of expands to include Daryl’s three-year-olds as well as her own group. It’s not uncommon for one of them to need the other to keep an eye on the kids for a few minutes. Urgent phone calls, digestion problems that have to be addressed immediately, some important business that can’t wait a moment: these things happen to everyone, even a kindergarten teacher. Thankfully, between two full-time teachers and two assistants, there are enough adults there for one to disappear for even up to half an hour. 

“What’s up, your brother again?” Amy asks worriedly. Concern makes her face scrunch up into a frown. She knows how often Daryl’s had to run to the police station to bail his brother out for _drunk and disorderly._ She doesn’t approve; she thinks at almost forty, Merle’s old enough to be held responsible for his own actions. She said so much to Daryl, who shrugged, nodded and went to bail his brother out anyway.

But that was then. 

“Naw, nothin’ like that,” Daryl says, shaking his head. “Ain’t gonna be a minute. Just this friend I gotta talk to.”

“No worries,” Amy assures him.

Daryl pats her on the arm in a sort-of friendly gesture and heads back to the building. He takes off the yellow-and-blue apron with a big sunflower patch across the chest and leaves it in the cloakroom, then he goes out the front entrance and circles back around the fence to the street adjacent to the yard. It takes him all of about three minutes, tops, and so he’s not surprised the man is still there.

He’s sitting on a bench and doing something on his phone, acting like he’s not anyone suspicious at all. He doesn’t look up when Daryl comes to stand in front of him, but Daryl thinks it’s not because he hasn’t noticed - the man’s trying to actively ignore him. So he knows he’s been busted. The fact he chose to pretend he’s just a bystander is a good sign, though; a pedo probably would’ve run rather than be confronted.

“Ya can’t be here,” Daryl says, going for a direct approach.

“Excuse me?” The Creep asks, looking up like he’s only just realized there’s someone standing there with him. He’s got a nice voice, just the right timbre to make a shiver run down Daryl’s spine at the pleasant images it conjures - and the most beautiful blue eyes in the history of mankind.

Un- _fucking-_ fair.

“Don’cha _excuse me,_ man. Ya been comin’ here starin’ at them kids for months now. I’m sayin’, ya can’t be doin’ that no more,” Daryl says quickly. He’s getting irritated; the guy’s too pretty and now it turns out he sounds like sin personified, and from up close, his stubble looks really artful and his hair is actually adorably curly. Why can’t Daryl meet a man like this at a gay bar one of these days? No, of course his only chance of interacting with someone so completely his type is on an empty sidewalk outside the daycare center, telling him off for possibly being a pervert.

“I thought I was being stealthy,” the man says with a sigh. He turns off the screen on his phone and pockets it, then looks up at Daryl again with those piercing blue eyes. 

“My son is three years old,” he explains softly. “He’s in your group. Carl.”

“Carl Walsh?” Daryl asks, frowning in confusion. But that can’t be. He’s met the kid’s parents before. A mom and a dad, the full set. Now that he thinks about it though, it’s a little strange that the boy only looks a little like Mrs. Walsh and absolutely nothing like Mr. Walsh at all. But he does look a lot like this guy sitting right in front of Daryl.

And his eyes? Blue, even though both the Walshes both have brown.

“Yeah, that’s him,” the stranger says, and sighs again. “I don’t get to see him at all. His mother married another man and doesn’t want me in their life. You know, for a long time I thought I was fine with it. Guess I’m not.”

“Listen, I feel for ya, man,” Daryl admits, because he does, really, even if he can’t quite imagine himself in the man’s shoes. “But ya gotta know it’s lookin’ mighty suspicious. I thought ya were some kinda creep all this time.”

“Nah, you didn’t,” the man replies confidently, and the corners of his lips quirk up into a small smile. “I’ve seen you there, you know, chasing them around the playground, making sure nobody got hurt. You seem to be taking the safety of these kids really seriously. If you really thought I was some creep, you would’ve called the cops on me a long time ago.”

It’s true, but Daryl doesn’t want to say it, so he just glares at the man half-heartedly. It’s a relief to find out the pretty stranger isn’t secretly perving on kids; still, the situation isn’t ideal. If Carl’s mother doesn’t want the boy’d bio dad to see him, then she must have her reasons. Plus, well, Daryl still can’t discount the fact that someone besides him is bound to notice a stranger watching children on the playground, and might come to an obvious if incorrect conclusion. So the man has to go.

“You don’t have to worry anyway,” the stranger says, shrugging, before Daryl can say anything else. 

“I’m leaving the state tonight. Work stuff. Depending on the outcome, you likely won’t be seeing me again for a long time.”

“Pity,” Daryl mutters under his breath, then blinks at having even said it out loud. He’s very aware that the warmth spreading across his cheeks means he’s blushing like an idiot. 

He should be. Seriously, flirting with a guy he sort-of accused of perving on children is definitely something he should be embarrassed about. Especially a guy who’s allegedly the real father of one of the kids in his group, and so most probably straight.

_Great goin’, Dixon. Creep the guy out why don’cha._

“I, uh, gotta go,” he says, then lifts a hand to his mouth to bite at the tip of his thumb. It’s a nervous habit he’s been trying to fight for a long time in order to not be a bad influence on his kids who just love to copy everything he does. Obviously, a blunder in the presence of an attractive man is enough to throw him right back into it. 

“You take care of yourself,” the stranger says, and there’s something really intense in the way he looks at Daryl - like a warning, or a threat, or both. 

Before Daryl turns to leave, the man suddenly grabs his wrist to stall him. He looks up at him earnestly and says:

“Don’t go out at night if you don’t have to. Especially not around here.”

*

In retrospect, Daryl thinks he really should have heeded that advice.

*

Sometimes, the work day at the Sunflower Valley Daycare Center extends well past daylight hours after the kids are long gone to their homes. It happens about once or twice a month: one of the employees has to stay behind and do the stock inventory. The center can’t really afford to hire someone else to do it. A couple years back, Mr. Horvath, the manager, used to take care of all the admin stuff, but his health isn’t what it used to be. His eyesight has worsened to the point that he can’t see the small font on the computer screen even when he’s wearing glasses. That’s why one of the teachers is usually asked to stay behind once a month. 

Daryl’s volunteered for it every month for the last two years. It’s not paid overtime; he’s allowed to come in later on the next day, but there are no other benefits save maybe for everyone’s gratitude. The job is basically counting toys and filling Excel spreadsheets for an entire evening. Honestly, nobody else ever wants to do it, but it’s not like Daryl’s forced to take one for the team or anything like that.

Nah. He does it because he’s the only man on the staff save for Mr. Horvath who’s seventy years old. The thing is, the center is located in the outskirts of the city, which is great for when there’s a little day trip to the woods or something, but not that great when it comes to public transport. It’s over five miles to the closest bus stop, but the last bus departs at seven-thirty. The road is badly lit, too, and narrow as hell because of the construction work that’s been ongoing for the last seven months at least with no end in sight. It’s hard to navigate with a car so most teachers use public transport and bicycles for as long as possible.

Daryl walks to and from work every day. There’s no way to commute to where he lives since his house is outside the city boundaries. He has no problem going home all alone after dark. Unlike his colleagues, he’s big, strong and ugly. On the off-chance that someone decides to attack him for some reason, Daryl can defend himself pretty well. Not that it’s very likely to happen; Delilah is peaceful for a city its size, the crime rate is rather low. Most drifters seem to prefer to go a few extra miles and end up in Atlanta, and the local misfits don’t really go out of their way to attack people in the suburbs. It’s been a long time since there’s been anything more serious than a shoplifting incident around these parts.

So Daryl’s being paranoid. Whatever. In this particular case, he doesn’t see the downsides to him taking the inventory duty. Mr. Horvath and the women get home safe when it’s still daylight - or in winter, they go catch the bus in a group. The inventory gets done. Daryl goes home and feels good about himself. Win-win-win.

And today’s one of those inventory days. As if that’s not enough, Daryl also volunteered to help with the laundry after Lizzie from Amy’s group got into the storage room and puked all over the blankets and pillowcases on the lower shelves. Since he was staying after hours anyway, he might as well do it all. It’s not like setting the laundry machine and waiting for the program to run its course is some sort of a hard labor task.

When he volunteered to do the overtime, however, he didn’t know there was a shipment of new books, stationery and crayons that would need to be catalogued from scratch. 

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Horvath said. He sounded sincere in the apology. He always seemed to be feeling guilty when he had to assign any additional work. “Had it arrived earlier, I would’ve at least put the labels on everything myself. The courier came right before the end of the day. Said the GPS didn’t know where to go.”

“Yeah, well,” Daryl muttered. “With the road half-closed and lookin’ like a ditch, ain’t strange nobody knows how to get here. No worries, boss. I’ll get stuff done.”

“Take tomorrow off, then,” Mr. Horvath offered. “A paid day off,” he clarified before Daryl could protest. “I’ll ask my granddaughter to sub for you, Jacqui will help. It won’t be any trouble.”

Daryl agreed, but only because his assistant teacher Jacqui and Mr. Horvath’s granddaughter Amelie made a good team. They had to sub for Daryl together for a few days last year when he was sick. Before his kindergarten teacher days, he wouldn’t have let a fever and some sniffles keep him from working and earning money; with his kids’ health at stake, however, he took the sick leave like a good boy and spent the whole time in bed recovering. It was probably the longest he’d spent away from the daycare center since he started working there.

After Mr. Horvath left, Daryl got to work. First things first, he grabbed the whole basket of soiled linens and carried them down to the laundry machine in the basement. He put them into the old machine, added the detergent and set the program. Then, he walked back upstairs, grabbed the big carton of supplies, and got to it.

He’s still at it several hours later. It’s almost midnight; he only took a break twice: to put the laundry in the dryer once the washing program ended, then to take it out, fold it and place it back in the storage room. Since then, he’s been stuck printing labels, sticking them to shit and entering numbers into the spreadsheet.

There’s only one carton left. It’s got art supplies in it, with some drawing pads on the top, a whole assortment of safe-for-consumption glues, plastic containers of glitter, a couple pounds of modelling clay, and crayons. A square shit-ton of crayons. 

“Fuckin’ crayons,” he sighs.

As he labels them, he notices that one of the crayon boxes is unsealed. It’s nothing unusual; the center often buys B-grade goods at a huge discount to save some money. At a daycare full of young kids, quantity trumps quality when it comes to things such as art supplies. It’s not like the children will notice, and Daryl doesn’t suppose there exists a brand of crayons durable enough to withstand being handled by really expressive four-year-olds. 

He looks inside the box and counts the crayons to make sure all the colors are there. None seem to be missing, although one crayon is broken in half. Not a problem, that; a single broken crayon means two crayons that can be used simultaneously. It’s funny how kids always want to use the same color at the exact same time. Fighting must be much more appealing than actually drawing when your age can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Shrugging, Daryl pulls the broken crayon out of the box to sharpen the broken-off half so it can be ready to use whenever. Of course only the top part comes out, so in order not to damage the box further, he simply overturns it and gently spills the contents on top of the table.

There’s a small, rectangular wooden plaque, or chip, among the crayons. It’s smooth like somebody sanded it with fine-grain sandpaper, and there are symbols carved on it that look like a very elegant script, some sort of cursive in a foreign language. It doesn’t look like something that should be in a box with crayons; the chip is very small, enough so that it presents quite a choking hazard. Frowning, Daryl takes another box and opens it, then spills the crayons on the table. No chip. Just to be sure, he checks the other twenty-three boxes, but none of them have any potentially dangerous elements that don’t belong.

“Huh,” he says, and examines the chip again. There’s nothing that suggests how it could’ve gotten inside the crayon box. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s deliberately been put there to endanger anyone; Daryl supposes somebody must’ve crammed it in there when the crayons were on display in some shop with art and office supplies. Things like that happen all the time. A kid must’ve been accompanying their parents while shopping, got bored, opened a box with some board game they got their hands on. Children do tend to do a lot of damage when they’re not otherwise occupied.

Satisfied that there are no more dangerous objects in the rest of the boxes, Daryl pockets the chip and begins to cram the crayons back inside their packaging in full color range sets. Once he’s done, he looks at the clock on his phone and groans when he realizes it’s almost one o’clock. He lost an hour over this, and he still has to enter the information from the labels into the inventory list. 

It’s almost two by the time he’s finally ready to head home.

*

Daryl has lived in the old cabin in the woods for as long as he can remember. It’s about an hour’s walk from the daycare center, barely within the town boundaries of Delilah. He shares the place with his older brother, although it’s more that whenever he’s not in jail, Merle is freeloading while Daryl pays all the bills. 

He guesses that at this time of night, Merle’s already home, sprawled on the coach or on the floor, depending on how wasted he is. That is, unless he got himself arrested or thrown into the drunk tank again. Honestly, either way is fine by Daryl; even if Merle is home, it’s unlikely he’s going to wake up any time soon and be a bother. He sleeps like a log when he’s under the influence, and he’s always under the influence of _something._ It’s a blessing on nights when Daryl gets home late and the only thing he wants to do is sleep.

To get home, he follows the road out of the city before he turns to take a beaten path into the woods, barely wide enough to fit a single car, but perfect for walking. It’s Daryl’s favorite part of the hike. Delilah isn’t a big city, but it’s still a city, and he’s never felt much like a city boy. He likes living in the woods, close enough to civilization that it’s within walking distance, but far enough that he doesn’t hear traffic when he wakes up in the morning. These woods, he knows them like the back of his hand. This is where he grew up and learned to hunt, to track and, in darker times, to hide. He’s pretty sure there’s nothing around these parts that can surprise him.

It’s quite a chilly night for October. Daryl regrets that he didn’t take a jacket when he left in the morning. He suddenly remembers the Creep - who’s not actually so creepy after all - and his brown leather jacket with fur lining. That thing must be warm as fuck. With a sigh, he lets himself daydream a little about wearing something warmed by another man’s body heat, smelling of another man’s musk. Damn, he needs to get laid. How does a gay dude get laid in the middle of nowhere in Georgia? Delilah isn’t exactly the capital of acceptance. There aren’t any gay bars here, the last attempt to hold a Pride event got rejected by the city council before it was even presented, and the whole place is barely out of its white supremacist days; much to Merle’s disappointment. 

The city used to be much more backwoods than it is nowadays. After the nearby factory closed down thirty years ago, most of its old inhabitants left in search of other opportunities within the industry, and the land was bought up by developers for real cheap. It’s apparently a good commute to Atlanta, close to the Interstate, but the ambience is that of a small town. The appeal of living within an hour’s drive to a big city, but for a much lower price, drew in the first new settlers. Soon enough, Delilah grew from a small abandoned town into the largest city in King County, with its own full infrastructure and a lot to offer in terms of job opportunities, entertainment and white picket fence communities. Only some of the original inhabitants are still there, living in the outskirts mostly forgotten - Daryl Dixon and his brother included.

Not that it turned the place into an outpost of positivity and acceptance. Delilah might be a modern city, but it’s no Atlanta. 

“Well, fuck the South,” Daryl mutters under his breath and rubs his arms for warmth after a particularly chilly gust of wind.

There’s a rustle in the trees behind him, and it’s loud enough that he notices. He’s used to the typical noises of the woods like leaves rustling, trees creaking and bugs chittering, so he normally ignores them. The fact that this particular sound stood out means there’s something different.

 _Wrong,_ he thinks, alarmed. _Not different. Wrong._

He stops walking, comes to a standstill and exhales softly. He quickly realizes the reason something feels wrong: the night is too quiet. It’s October, there should be all sorts of noises out there. Fall in the South is a lively season, with insects buzzing around and all sorts of night birds calling in the dark. Regardless of the season, too, it’s always kind of loud in the woods. The trees creak and their leaves rustle in the wind. Critters run through the undergrowth in search of edibles. Old branches break and fall, sometimes for no reason at all. All the noises, natural in their origin, are usually only amplified by the darkness. 

Right now, though, the woods are deathly silent.

There’s a creek running nearby, not a few paces from where Daryl’s standing, but even that can’t be heard, as if the water stopped running just to wait in this ominous, menacing silence. It’s like he’s surrounded by a bubble of soundlessness, only he’s pretty sure such a thing isn’t possible. Not unless he’s about to be abducted by aliens or something equally ridiculous.

Nothing happens as he stands and waits. Not only does he not get abducted; there are also no other strangely loud noises permeating the bubble and reaching his ears, so Daryl simply starts walking again. If his steps take on a quicker pace, it’s only because he’s cold.

“Stop bein’ dumb,” he mutters to himself, and sticks his hands into the pockets of his jeans just to stop them shaking. 

He’s almost there, it would be stupid to start panicking now. What’s there to panic about, anyway? There aren’t any big wild animals around Delilah, the woods are not so vast. If he tried, he could find some venomous snakes maybe, but he shouldn’t have a problem unless he steps on one like an idiot. There haven’t been bears in these parts for decades, and no wolves or wild cats. It’s unlikely he’s going to get eaten by anything, and even less likely that someone out there is following him to, what, assault him? Grab him, or something equally nefarious? He’s a big ugly redneck in his mid-thirties. His lungs are shit from smoking and his liver could stand to be replaced after a misspent youth of drinking to forget his sorrows, so he couldn’t even be useful for his organs. He’s not exactly kidnapping material.

Still, he feels irrationally threatened, and he hates it. He’s used to being scared of shit, but the woods are his safe space, his Goddamn comfort zone. He knows them, he’s spent enough nights under the stars out here to feel more at home right among the trees than in that poor excuse for a house he lives in. How many times had he run away to the woods to hide from real danger? More than he can count, that’s for sure. Whatever it is that’s causing his distress, he hopes it goes away soon.

Maybe it’s the sandwiches he had for lunch. That cheese did look suspicious.

The air around Daryl is all different, he notices. When he looks straight ahead for too long, he can almost see it ripple, like it sometimes does on particularly hot, humid days. It’s neither hot nor humid now, however, and so the effect makes no sense. Unless there’s something in front of him, something - what? - transparent, but not entirely invisible. Something that isn’t solid enough to be fully perceived by the human eye, but, if one looks hard enough-

 _No,_ Daryl decides. It must be his imagination. Or exhaustion. He’s tired, he’s sleepy, he’s just seeing things which aren’t there.

Just in case, though, he turns his gaze on the path right in front of his feet, and doesn’t look too far ahead. He knows the way, he doesn’t need to go around making himself paranoid. He wishes he had some earbuds for his phone. The unnatural silence is getting to him.

Finally, after what seemed like a much longer time than it reasonably could have been, Daryl reaches the cabin. He lets himself in, closes the door behind him and locks it with a deep frown. He’d never felt the need to lock his door before. It doesn’t even have a normal lock, just a latch and a padlock. It’s something, but it’s not like it would do him much good if someone really was following him with nefarious intentions; the whole place is barely standing, a good gust of wind could tip it over. Merle broke one window in a drunken fit a few days ago and Daryl had to secure a piece of tarp in place of the glass because old Joe said he couldn’t come replace it before Thanksgiving. Stupid old drunk. There are holes between the logs of wood making up the walls; Daryl’s managed to fill some of them in with tar, but he hasn’t had the time to finish the task just yet. The whole place is falling apart, from age and lack of any significant renovation work in years. 

Really, the padlock on that door is more for Daryl’s peace of mind than anything practical.

He turns on the small lamp on the table and starts undressing. He throws the clothes on the backrest of the couch, then chuckles as he notices a woman sleeping on the couch, wrapped in Merle’s shirt and a blanket. Her long blond hair is tangled, her clothes seem to be at least partially missing and, judging by the strong stench of booze in the air, she’s gonna be out cold until noon at least. That’s not unusual for Merle’s sexual contests. The girl doesn’t look like she’s going to mind Daryl’s clothes on the backrest. She doesn’t look like she minds much about anything, so Daryl has no problem ignoring her as well.

Merle himself is gone. Nothing strange about that, either. He arrived, he conquested, he went back to whatever ditch he picked up his broad from. There’s gonna be one hell of a walk of shame for the poor girl in the morning, unless she’s too damaged to feel any shame whatsoever.

Shaking his head and wondering what in fuck’s name women even see in his brother, Daryl heads towards the bathroom. Already he feels more at peace, like a heavy weight has been lifted off his chest. The anxiety that he experienced outside - he refuses to call it _fear -_ is completely gone, and in its stead, he can really feel the exhaustion of the long day creeping into his bones. He decides to take a quick shower and thanks whatever deities might be listening for the small mercy which is the fact that Merle and his girl didn’t use up all of the hot water. Lighting the stove just to heat up bathing water at three in the morning would’ve been too much of a chore.

Humming softly under his breath, Daryl gives himself a perfunctory scrub and washes his hair with the cheap shampoo he bought after Merle so kindly spilled a whole bottle of the nice one Carol got Daryl for his birthday. This new one smells like nothing in particular, something grassy, but at least it’s better than the three-in-one shit Merle tends to buy if he remembers to do shopping for anything that isn’t beer. 

A few minutes under the warm stream of water and Daryl sighs in contentment. He didn’t realize how tense the short walk through the woods made him, but he realizes now as his muscles relax and his breathing evens out. Whatever it was that came over him out there, it’s all gone now, the horrifying silence taken over by the rush of water in the shower, and Daryl’s own hushed voice as he hums the lyrics to a silly song he must’ve heard on the radio some time or another.

It’s been a long day. He can’t wait to go to bed.

He sleeps in sweatpants, so after the shower, he grabs the freshly laundered pair from the top of the old laundry machine next to the shower stall and pulls them on, mentally chiding himself for leaving clean clothes in the bathroom _again_. He grabs his toothbrush and grimaces at the almost empty tube of paste; he’s going to have to buy some tomorrow. Good thing he doesn’t have to get up early, though. He can just go to the gas station to grab some supplies.

He brushes his teeth, rinses, dries his face with the towel. He brushes his hair too, grateful that Merle isn’t there to cackle and call him a girl; Merle’s been taunting him for growing it out for years now. 

_“What, Daryl-eena, ya gonna keep it in braids, too? Put ‘em lil’ flowers in it like all ‘em fairies on TV?”_

It’s really, really tough being Merle Dixon’s brother sometimes.

With a soft sigh, Daryl wipes the floor, hangs the towel on the rack and finally leaves the bathroom to head to bed. On the way, he walks up to the couch again to pick up his phone from the pocket of his jeans. He checks if Merle’s girl is still fast asleep or if he should offer to call her a cab home, but even in the dim light, he can clearly see:

The girl isn’t there.

“The fuck?” Daryl mutters, confused. He looks around the cabin. It’s only one big room with a kitchenette. Nowhere to hide, so it’s easy to see how the place is completely empty save for himself. Did the girl decide to go out all of a sudden? If it had been Merle, Daryl would’ve guessed he’d gone to take a leak because the bathroom was occupied. But girls don’t really go pissing in the woods in the middle of the night, do they?

He walks to the door to make sure the girl didn’t actually walk out there half-naked. As he approaches, he immediately notices that the door’s still locked. The key to the padlock is still hanging on the hook on the wall by the overhead light switch. Which means the girl’s not out there. Not unless she jumped out the window.

Confused and more than a little spooked for some reason, Daryl stares at the couch again. Nobody’s there for sure, he can see that even in the gloomy light of the small table lamp, but there seems to be a dark shape where the girl slept before. It doesn’t look like a person, more like a giant stain on the dirty brown blanket that’s been laid out on that couch forever. Narrowing his eyes, Daryl walks closer and presses a finger to the stain, only to realize it’s warm and wet. Sticky. He blinks and pulls his finger away, lifts it and angles his hand closer to the lamp to see it better-

There’s a red smear on his finger. 

“The hell is that,” he says to himself and looks back to the couch.

 _More light,_ he decides and all but runs to the door. He turns on the overhead light, his eyes never leaving the couch, and at the same moment, many things happen at once. 

In the sudden brightness, he finally finds the missing girl, or rather, what’s left of her: there’s a mess of dirty blonde hair, smeared red, and bits and pieces of flesh and viscera splattered all over the couch and the floor. 

Behind the couch right where Daryl stood not a minute ago, there’s a silhouette resembling a man, semi-transparent for a few blinks of the eye before it solidifies - and it doesn’t have a face. 

“What-” Daryl says. He takes a step back, trips over his own feet, stumbles back-

The door knob rattles and there’s an insistent banging on the door, but Daryl almost doesn’t register it. Horrified, he watches as the smooth surface on the creature’s head where the face would be begins to morph into features of a man he recognizes: a snub nose with a piece of flesh missing from one of the nostrils, the memento of a hunt gone wrong; a pair of pale, cold eyes with a downward slant and a bloodshot red tinge; a cruel, thin-lipped mouth which he remembers always being stuck in some sort of a cruel smirk due to a thick scar in its right corner. There’s a kind of unhealthy tint to the man’s - creature’s - skin, like there always used to be after he returned home from a bender.

“Ya miss me, boy?” Will Dixon asks; the voice sounds hoarse and scratchy from lack of use, but it’s still booming and loud, filling every space in the small cabin. Just the way it used to be.

Daryl shudders, memories he’d been repressing for years resurfacing like a dam has been broken. 

“Yer dead,” he whispers, shaking his head in denial. It’s the one thing he used to be sure of. One thing he could draw comfort from, no matter how shitty his life would become; failure after failure, disappointment after disappointment, and the only thought that kept Daryl going all this time was, _at least he’s gone. Can’t hurt me no more._

“Oh, I’m dead, I’m real damn dead,” the man, the _thing,_ assures him, grinning like a maniac. There’s a maggot wiggling in his mouth in the space between front teeth where one of the incisors was knocked out in a bar fight many years ago. His voice, so clear at first, seems to come from afar right now. It sounds distorted, as if carried on water. “Don’cha worry though, boy. Ya gonna join me in the sweet afterlife real soon.”

The thing moves, and there’s no way it’s a human being: it’s too fast, too silent, and clumsy on two legs despite its speed; all of a sudden, it’s gripping Daryl’s throat, squeezing, lifting him up like he weighs nothing, and _that_ is fucking real. Daryl struggles, tries to kick his attacker, but his legs go right through it like it’s made of thin air. But the hold the - ghost? Is that thing a fucking ghost? - the hold on Daryl’s neck is fucking real, and it’s choking the life out of him, and Daryl feels helpless tears running down his face as he realizes there’s no way out of this-

The door busts open, falling out of its hinges, and the man from outside the daycare center leaps right at the assailant, swinging something that seems to be a metal rod like it’s a fucking sword. The unassuming weapon hits the thing that isn’t - can’t be - Daryl’s father, and the thing dissolves into thin air in a cloud of dark smoke, dropping Daryl to the floor.

“What- what’s goin’ on,” Daryl spits out in between coughs, voice much too high-pitched to be considered remotely normal. He’s _this_ fucking close to losing his mind, and even so, he is instantly aware of something: he can’t hear anything besides his own frantic heartbeat. That oppressive, stifling silence from when he was walking through the woods, is back.

The stranger looks around, assessing. “That guy, was he someone you knew? Someone you’re scared of?” He asks urgently. His voice, just like the… thing’s, that attacked Daryl, sounds strange. There’s no reason for it to be so muffled, like a call from the distance. An echo.

Daryl rubs his eyes. “Yeah,” he mutters, “yeah, he was… Fuck, man, what just happened? What… What the hell was that thing?”

“A spirit of fear,” the stranger replies quickly. He notices the couch, the mess of human remains there, and sighs. “Fuck. I was too late,” he says, shaking his head. “Listen, you gotta get out of here. This thing, it’s going to return soon, and I can’t get rid of it unless I find the anchor.”

“What anchor,” Daryl snaps. He gets up shakily to his feet. “The hell’s goin’ on here? Who the fuck are ya, dude? And screw you, don’cha tell me to get outta here, that thing tried to fuckin’ kill me, what the fuck, _what the fuck-”_

The stranger doesn’t offer an explanation, though. He just shakes his head again and repeats, “You have to get out, man. It’s dangerous in here.”

“Ya don’t fuckin’ say!” Daryl yells, and he doesn’t know what’s happening to him, but something just… blows up, and he punches the man in the jaw.

Or rather, he tries to, but the stranger grabs him by the wrist, easily evading the blow like he’s got a lot of experience in brawls, and twists Daryl’s arm behind his back. He’s scrawnier than Daryl, but he’s also surprisingly strong.

“Calm the fuck down,” he growls and applies a little too much pressure to be considered harmless. “You don’t wanna go out, fine, feel free to stay! But at least make yourself useful. Did you see anything out of place here when you arrived? Something the victim had? Or maybe something you brought home?”

“Didn’t steal nothin’,” Daryl hisses, making a feeble attempt to get out of the man’s hold. It’s firm, and he realizes if he tries to struggle, he’s going to hurt himself. Resigned, he stops fighting, and to his surprise, that’s enough for the man to release him.

“I ain’t sayin’ you stole anything! I don’t have time for your breakdowns right now, okay? I’m trying to find the damn anchor and maybe save your life, so concentrate and tell me if you saw anything new in here today!”

Raising his voice in annoyance, Daryl replies: “I didn’t! Only thing that ain’t been here when I left this mornin’ was the dead skank! ‘s not like I gotta whole lot a places to go grab stuff from when I got off work at two in the fuckin’...” He trails off.

The stranger looks at him in question, and Daryl blinks, then lets out a shuddering breath.

“I found a thing, like a wood chip, or a token, somethin’. In a box of crayons. Looks like it came from some kinda board game I guess. Thought it was dangerous to leave it there since lil’ kids might try to swallow it, so I put it in my pocket.”

The stranger nods. “Okay. Where is it now?”

Daryl points to the pile of his clothes still on the backrest of the couch. In the full light, he’s pretty sure he can see splatters of red all other them. Blood and who the fuck knows what else.

Jesus fucking Christ.

The man hands Daryl his metal rod. “If he returns, take a swing at him. It doesn’t matter where you hit, but try to aim at the head, it keeps them away for longer.”

Daryl accepts the rod and holds it in both hands like a baseball bat. He notices that his hands are shaking. He’s not sure what the fuck is going on. A part of him is hoping that he simply slipped in the shower and hit his head, and all of this is some sort of a delirious dream resulting from deep concussion. Another part feels the throbbing pain in his throat and knows this is really happening, regardless of how much it reminds him of B-class horror flicks Merle always liked watching while tripping with his junkie friends.

Shit, no horror flick Daryl’s ever seen was this _fucking terrifying._

The stranger walks towards the couch steadily and grabs Daryl’s jeans. He doesn’t seem to be as bothered by the blood and other bits as a sane person should be; he rummages through the pockets and frowns, then looks at the floor next to the couch. 

Daryl’s so engaged in watching him that he almost doesn’t notice the air rippling right beside the man, just like he thought it did back in the woods. Suddenly, the rippling stops, and the _thing_ from before is back out of nowhere. It’s semi-transparent and faceless again, and it goes straight for the man in one unnaturally fast lunge. It grabs the stranger with large clawed hands and throws him into the wall. The man huffs, doubling over from the impact, then tries to steady himself, but the thing is on him within a fraction of a second. It doesn’t look like Will Dixon when it grabs the stranger by the neck the same way it grabbed Daryl before, and it says something too soft for Daryl to catch.

The stranger chokes, but he looks back straight at Daryl.

“That... chip!” He manages to choke out. “Gotta- burn it!”

Daryl throws himself to the couch as quickly as he can as he simultaneously throws the metal rod to the stranger. He misses; it falls on the floor with a clang, but it goes through the thing’s leg, making its hold on the stranger’s neck loosen. The man dives to the floor to grab the rod, and Daryl stops paying him attention, concentrating on finding the Goddamn chip. It’s not on the floor behind the couch, so Daryl reaches over the backrest to pat down the bloody wet stain on the blanket, _human blood and bones and flesh and holy Mother of God,_ and finally his hand comes upon something small and solid. He grabs the chip and the zippo from the table, lifts them both; the zippo refuses to cooperate, or his hands shake too much, either of the two. He tries again, then again, the distorted sound of the stranger’s choking filling his ears like some horrible horror soundtrack. Finally the zippo works, and Daryl puts the chip into the flame, hissing when it burns his fingers as well. 

He drops the chip, but it’s already on fire, burning despite the wetness of the blood covering its entire smooth surface. 

As if on cue, the _thing_ disappears with a piercing wail, and the stranger collapses against the floor, breathing heavily. For a moment, the only sounds in the cabin are the stranger’s wheezing and Daryl’s heartbeat, because Daryl sure as fuck isn’t breathing - and then a whole world of noises bursts into being: the hooting of an owl, the creek’s steady current, tree branches rustling from the high wind. All normal, all common, but their sudden return almost deafens Daryl for a moment.

 _I’m in shock,_ he thinks surprisingly calmly for someone who’s anything but calm. His hands are shaking and he can barely stand, and he thinks he might be covered in blood, or at least smeared with it. There’s a shit-ton of blood everywhere, and other things that might be even worse, and there’s a dead woman on the couch. Completely fucking dead. Practically torn to shreds, and those shreds are everywhere, too.

Daryl doesn’t know how much time has passed, but the next thing he registers is, he’s being pushed towards the door.

“What,” he whispers. He doesn’t mean to whisper, but his voice isn’t working correctly.

“You can’t stay here,” the stranger says softly. “Come on.”

“‘s my home,” Daryl protests weakly. “And that girl. Gotta call for help-”

“You’ll do no such thing,” the man tells him firmly, shoving him when Daryl refuses to budge. “Come on! Whoever made that chip knows exactly what happened here. If they’re as much of a bastard as I think they are, they’re probably in the process of calling the cops. They’re gonna frame you for that woman’s death. You can’t stay here.”

“I brought that thing home,” Daryl whimpers. “It’s like I killed that woman mesself.”

“Bullshit. You didn’t know what it was. That’s how clever that bastard is. Come on, man. Let me help you, okay? Let me save you.”

Too tired to fight anymore, Daryl lets the man lead him outside. There’s a car parked a few feet outside the house, some dark sedan Daryl can’t tell the make of in the darkness. He gets manhandled into the passenger seat, frowning at the feel of the cool leather on the bare skin of his back. He’s still barefoot, dressed in only the sweatpants. He’s probably dirty again. Way to waste a good shower. 

He stares blankly through the windshield, waiting for the man to get in. The stranger went back inside the cabin right after seating Daryl in the car, and now he comes out again carrying stuff he then puts into the trunk before sliding into the driver’s seat. Apparently he decided to go scavenging for useful shit.

“Here,” he says, handing Daryl a black t-shirt he must’ve swiped from the fresh laundry pile. He also offers him a damp towel. “Clean yourself up, you’ll feel better.”

“There’s a dead girl in my house and I gotta run like a damn fugitive. Yer probly kidnappin’ me, too,” Daryl mutters darkly. “Believe me, I ain’t gonna feel better any time soon.”

“Okay,” the stranger agrees, shrugging. 

He doesn’t say anything else as he starts the car. Daryl doesn’t ask where they’re going, where the man’s taking him, what he’s supposed to do next. It’s really almost like he’s being kidnapped, but even the idea of it is ridiculous. And, so what if he is? It’s true that he can’t really remain here. How would he explain what happened if he stayed and the cops arrived? A woman is dead. She’s dead because Daryl brought home something. A tiny little wood chip. A fucking voodoo wood chip that somehow conjured up a thing that might or might not have been his dead bastard of a father.

He’s shivering again, but he tries to convince himself it’s because of the cold.

*

Daryl wakes up in the car when the sun is already up. For a second there, he’s confused as to why he’s in a car in the first place, but it comes back to him in violent flashes of memory. There’s a blanket thrown haphazardly around him, and he’s grateful for the warmth it provides in the crisp morning air. The car’s parked outside a gas station; Daryl realizes that he was awakened by the sound of the door closing. He looks at the driver’s seat where the stranger from yesterday is getting comfortable, holding out a foam cup of coffee.

“You look like you could use a pick-me-up,” the man says softly.

Daryl frowns, but accepts the coffee. He takes a sip and hisses; it’s hot and tastes awful, which is about what he should’ve expected of a gas station coffee. Still, it helps warm him up from the inside, and it feels a bit like coming back to life, in a way. Daryl’s not sure if he wants to come to terms with everything that happened last night so soon, but he supposes he can take this first step into reality.

“I bought sandwiches and donuts,” the stranger offers, still in that carefully soft voice. Like he’s expecting Daryl to break down again any moment.

It’s not an unreasonable thing to expect. Maybe Daryl should be breaking down. He’s not in the mood for it, though.

“Where are we?” He asks instead, but he’s not prepared for the answer he’s given:

“We just passed the South Carolina state line. We’re going to New York from there.”

Daryl blinks at that. He’s never been outside of Georgia before. He never had any reason to leave, since everything he needed was in Delilah. He supposes being potentially framed for a crazy bloody murder of some girl he didn’t even know is as good a reason to go far away from home as any. Still, New York sounds more like a fairytale land than a real place. What the hell will he do with himself in New York? He’s never going to fit in there. He’s a southern hillbilly, not a trendy posh New Yorker.

Damn, he misses his kids already. And Amy, and Carol, and even his dumbass of a brother. Is he gonna see them again? Hah. Doesn’t seem likely.

“By the way, my name’s Rick,” the stranger introduces himself, and it’s nice to have something to call him by other than _creep_ or _stranger_. “Rick Grimes. What’s yours?”

“Daryl. Dixon.” 

He shrugs and takes a sip of the coffee. It’s really disgusting, too sweet and watery. Honestly, he doesn’t like coffee even when it’s actually good. He’s only drinking it now because it keeps him calm. A full-blown panic is inadvisable when holding a steaming cup in one’s hands, after all.

He swallows. “Yesterday, ya said, well. That thing. Ya called it a spirit of fear. The fuck does that mean?”

Rick Grimes hums thoughtfully before he offers something like an explanation. 

“Means whoever that guy was that you saw it as, is the thing you fear the most.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Daryl says, rolling his eyes. He came to that conclusion on his own, thanks very much. “Ain’t what I’m askin’.”

“You’re asking how it’s possible there even was a spirit of any kind there in the first place, aren’t you?” Grimes muses. “Welcome to the real world, Daryl Dixon. I’m sorry to say, but we’ve got monsters here.”

“Monsters, like what? Werewolves? Vampires?” Daryl asks, frowning in disbelief.

But Grimes just shrugs. “Sure. And tons of other creatures. You know, ghosts and poltergeists, witches. That’s how the spirit of fear got to you, by the way. That chip you found, it came from a powerful witch I’ve been tracking all over the place for, I don’t know, must be years now. It carried a summoning spell for the spirit of fear. As you probably noticed, the bastard can shapeshift, but other than that, it’s pretty much like all other spirits.”

Daryl blinks, worried. “But I found the chip at the daycare center. Ya think the witch is targettin’ the kids?”

“Probably,” Grimes says, nodding. He takes a bite of a donut, chews for half a minute, swallows and clears his throat with a small cough.

“Don’t worry about it, though. That place is locked tight against witches. Almost the entire city is, I’m not taking any chances. That’s why the spirit of fear only came out when you left to go home. You’re lucky I was there last night, by the way. I come to Delilah every now and then not just to see my kid, but mostly to reinforce the protection spells around the city. I just didn’t think to put wards around the woods...”

“Protection spells,” Daryl repeats incredulously. “What the fuck is this, Harry Potter?” 

Grimes chuckles. “I wish,” he admits wistfully. “This life is more like a B-grade horror movie most days, only difference being, sometimes I manage to actually save people. But, listen, you don’t gotta worry about all that. I’ve got a friend in New York, he’s gonna help you. He’ll hook you up with an honest job, he’ll find you somewhere to live. You can start over there, or you can go wherever. Don’t think about this shit more than you have to.”

“Man, that thing back there wanted to kill me!” Daryl protests. He runs the tips of his fingers over the bruises he’s sure are there on his neck. Even the softest touch stings something fierce. It pisses him off how it’s not even the first time he’s got these exact marks; only, the last time he had them, he was fifteen and scared all the fucking time.

No more. He’s not a helpless kid anymore, and for fuck’s sake, he’s not gonna go back to being a victim.

“It woulda killed me, but somehow ya knew to hit it with a, dunno, a damn metal stick, an’ it disappeared. And ya knew to burn that chip thing. What if somethin’ else tries to jump me in your damned New York, huh? How will I know how to kill it? Ya gotta teach me that stuff before ya dump me somewhere on my own. Gotta teach me all of it,” he demands.

Grimes blinks, then shakes his head. “The _metal stick_ was iron, and the chip had to be burned because it anchored the spirit to this world. Pretty common procedures for all ghosts. Salt works, too. I think iron and salt are supposed to have purifying properties? Something like that,” he explains. 

“You know, there’s like, a shit-ton of lore out there. You could just do some research on your own. You don’t need me. Not to mention, you really don’t want to get into this business, man. It sucks. If I could get out and live a normal life, believe me, I would.”

“Well ya already plucked me outta Georgia anyways!” Daryl snaps. “What kinda _normal life_ am I gonna have, huh? Can’t go home, can’t go back to my kids. Ya leave me out there in the big city, wha’cha think is gonna happen? Either one of yer monsters gonna kill me, or I’m gonna get killed in traffic.”

“The hell you are,” Grimes says, deadpan.

“Ain’t built to live in no city,” Daryl grumbles. 

It’s true enough, but it’s not why he’s being difficult. That spirit of fear thing, the fucker that looked like Will Dixon when it tried to choke the life out of him, it reminded him what it felt like to be weak and scared. Helpless. Growing up, he didn’t think there was any hope for him. He believed he’d end up the same as his mom, drunk and sad and eventually dead, sooner rather than later. Will Dixon getting himself knifed in a bar fight was the best thing that ever happened to him. The guy died and Daryl eventually realized he had nothing to be afraid anymore. He got his shit together, though it took a good few years; but he won, he pulled himself together and even managed to make something of himself. A kindergarten teacher. Someone little kids looked up to and really liked.

And now, like a house of cards, it’s all collapsing, and he’s scared again.

He groans, frustrated, and leans back against the car seat. Grimes watches him in silence, a thoughtful expression on his face as he seems to be weighing in his options. 

Finally, the man comes to a conclusion.

“I guess I could use a partner on this one job in New York,” he says in a neutral tone. “Going solo ain’t smart, anyhow. My last partner just dumped me, so I’m in the market for a replacement.”

And Daryl knows it’s not a decision he should be making on the go. He knows it’s heavy stuff, something he should think through. He’d be leaving behind any chance to return to a normal life, and for what? To chase monsters which may or may not exist with some random dude he wanted to call the cops on just yesterday. It’s utter foolishness. He’s still not completely sure any of this is even real. Maybe he ate something that gave him a really weird trip. It wouldn’t be the first time Merle had spiked his food just for the hell of it-

But he’s got bruises on his throat that make it difficult to so much as swallow spit, and none of this has felt like a hallucination so far. So, by process of elimination, Daryl decides to just assume it’s all true. Monsters are real. Merle’s unlucky girlfriend got ripped apart by some supernatural thing brought about by a piece of wood. There are witches out there, but their bad mojo can only hurt you where a strange dude in a fur-lined leather jacket hasn’t cast a damn _protection spell._ And for some reason, instead of looking for the evil motherfucker in Delilah where the chip surfaced, Rick Grimes is calmly going to New York, dragging Daryl along in a Honda that’s seen better times.

“Yeah, okay,” Daryl says, then exhales loudly and takes another sip of terrible gas station coffee. “Okay, I’ll stick with ya for a while.”

“Really?” Grimes asks, clearly surprised at this turn of events. So he didn’t expect Daryl to actually agree. It says a lot about how stupid a decision it is, but, hell. Whatever it is he’s getting himself into, it can’t get much worse than what Daryl’s already faced. 

So Daryl shrugs, and finishes the coffee. He’s hunted a lot of things before in his life, small game and bigger, squirrels, rabbits and deer, anything not to go hungry. Might as well use what he knows… and start hunting monsters.

**Author's Note:**

> You may want to come and scream at me on my tumblr, most--curiously--blue--eyes!
> 
> Please consider not hounding me about The Shark Heart. The final parts are coming along, but I need some more time to be happy with my writing for that story. It's not abandoned! Just very very late.


End file.
